Somewhere around page four of the Colorado Contract to Buy and Sell, there's a short paragraph about water rights. Most agents fill it out in about ten seconds. They check "N/A," move to the next initials box, and nobody thinks about it again until closing day. In the overwhelming majority of Colorado home sales, that's the right call. The property has city water, no well, no ditch stock, nothing to convey.
Longmont is not always that property.
This city sits on one of the densest webs of century-old irrigation infrastructure in Boulder County, and a handful of the companies that run it are headquartered right here in town. That paragraph you're skimming past isn't boilerplate everywhere it appears. In parts of Longmont, it's the one line in the whole contract that assumes something the title company can't actually verify.
What Paragraph 2.7.2 Is Actually Asking
The Colorado Contract to Buy and Sell handles water in three separate spots. One section covers water rights being conveyed with the property. Another covers well permits, if there's a well involved. A third covers stock certificates in a mutual ditch or reservoir company, which is how shareholders in Colorado's irrigation system actually hold their water.
Title professionals will tell you that in the overwhelming majority of urban residential deals, all three get marked not applicable, and that's fine. The property is on city water, there's no well, and nobody's transferring ditch stock. But "not applicable" on that form is answering a narrower question than most buyers think it's answering. It's confirming that no water rights are being sold with the house. It is not confirming that no ditch crosses the property, and it is not confirming that the seller has looked.
Why Longmont Isn't a Typical Case
Run a search of Colorado ditch companies by mailing address and you'll find several headquartered inside Longmont city limits: the Bonus Ditch Company, the Boulder and Weld County Ditch, the Clover Basin Ditch & Reservoir Company, and the Culver Irrigation Company all list Longmont addresses. These aren't relics filed away in a county archive. They're active mutual ditch companies, the kind that still hold shareholder meetings and still maintain physical infrastructure that moves water across private land.
Longmont's own drinking water supply makes the same point at city scale. The city's water resources page lays out how treated water actually reaches Longmont taps: it comes off the St. Vrain Creek watershed, storage in reservoirs like Ralph Price and Burch Lake feeding the North and South St. Vrain, and from there the Highland and Palmerton ditches carry that water to the city's own treatment facilities. If the ditches that supply an entire municipal water system are still doing that work today, it's not a stretch to expect smaller laterals from the same network still crossing residential lots on the city's older and edge-of-town parcels.
The Gap Between a Clean Title Search and an Actual Ditch
Here's the part that surprises people who assume a title commitment is a complete list of everything attached to a property. Under Colorado law, most ditch easements were never recorded with a deed. Once a ditch has been dug and used without objection from the landowner, the law treats permission as permanent. No written document, no recorded instrument, no deed reference required. Legal writeups on the subject describe this plainly: the presumption of consent is built into how these easements were created a century or more ago, long before anyone was filing paperwork at the county clerk's office for every farm improvement.
That has a direct consequence for a buyer today. A title search runs against recorded documents. If the ditch easement crossing a property was never recorded, because it didn't need to be, the search comes back clean and the easement is still fully enforceable. Legal guidance on this exact gap notes that title insurance frequently excludes prescriptive and unrecorded easements from coverage entirely, meaning the policy a buyer pays for at closing may not protect against exactly this scenario. The only ways to actually find an unrecorded ditch easement are a physical walk of the property looking for the ditch itself, and a direct call to the ditch company that serves that part of town.
An easement that was never recorded isn't a loophole. Under Colorado's ditch law, it's still fully enforceable against a new owner who never saw it in writing, because the law presumes consent once a ditch has operated without objection.
What the Paperwork Tells You vs. What Actually Protects You
| What's in front of you | What it actually covers |
|---|---|
| Paragraph 2.7.2 marked "N/A" | No water rights are being sold with the house. Says nothing about whether a ditch physically crosses the lot. |
| A clean title commitment | Lists recorded interests only. Most ditch easements in Colorado were never recorded and won't appear. |
| Standard title insurance | Often excludes prescriptive and unrecorded easements from coverage, per legal guidance on Colorado ditch law. |
| A survey from ten years ago | Shows the ditch if it was visible at the time. Doesn't establish current legal status or maintenance rights. |
Where This Actually Shows Up Around Longmont
The city's housing stock splits roughly into two shapes: a walkable older grid near Main Street built decades before most current zoning existed, and larger subdivisions built more recently on the east and south sides, on ground that was farmland within living memory. Both types of neighborhood carry the same exposure, for different reasons. Older lots near the historic core sometimes sit adjacent to laterals that predate the streets around them. Newer subdivisions on former agricultural ground were built after the farm was platted, but the ditch that irrigated that farm doesn't disappear just because houses replaced the crop rows. Ditch companies retain their right-of-way regardless of what gets built on top of it, and Colorado courts have been consistent that development pressure doesn't erase a dominant estate's easement rights.
This is exactly the kind of detail a buyer won't find by scrolling listing photos. It surfaces during due diligence, if anyone actually does the work instead of trusting the checkbox.
Before You Close: What to Actually Do
- Ask directly, in writing, whether the seller knows of any irrigation ditch, lateral, or headgate on or bordering the property, not just whether water rights are being conveyed.
- Request the recorded plat for the parcel and look for any notation referencing a ditch easement or right-of-way.
- If the property sits near open ground, a field, or an older agricultural parcel, call the ditch company that serves that section of town and ask whether the property falls within their easement footprint.
- Ask your title company, specifically, whether the policy excludes prescriptive or unrecorded easements, and get the answer in writing rather than assuming it's covered.
- If you plan to build anything near a known ditch, get written consent from the ditch company before you break ground. Self-help alterations to a ditch, even minor ones, can result in a court order to restore it at the landowner's expense.
What This Means If You're Selling
Sellers carry the flip side of this obligation. Colorado disclosure law requires sellers to avoid misrepresenting material facts about the property, and a known ditch easement is a material fact whether or not the standard contract paragraph prompts you to think about it. If you know there's a lateral running along your back fence line, or if you've ever paid dues to a ditch company, that's worth disclosing clearly rather than letting a buyer discover it after closing. It protects you from a claim down the road, and it's simply the more transparent way to run a transaction.
FAQ
Does every Longmont property have a ditch easement? No. Most homes on city water and standard residential lots have no ditch rights or easements at all. The exposure concentrates in older neighborhoods near historic agricultural land and in newer subdivisions built on former farmland where a ditch predates the houses.
Can I get title insurance that covers unrecorded ditch easements? Sometimes, through a specific endorsement, but it isn't automatic. Ask your title company directly whether prescriptive or unrecorded easements are excluded from your policy, and whether an endorsement is available for the property in question.
What if I find out after closing that a ditch crosses my lot? You still own the property, but the ditch company retains its right to access and maintain its infrastructure. You generally cannot alter, block, or build over the easement without the ditch company's consent, regardless of when you learned about it.
Longmont's paperwork looks the same as everyone else's until it doesn't. Knowing which properties actually need a closer look, and which ditch company to call when they do, is the kind of local detail that only comes from working this market deal after deal. If you're weighing a purchase or listing anywhere in Longmont's older neighborhoods or its newer east-side subdivisions, Smart Moves with Michelle can walk through exactly what to check before you sign anything. Let's make your smart move, get a free local market update.
